Report stresses changes in how the state handles child-safety procedure

A huge report on the state’s child-safety procedures is finally complete. The federal government ordered the “self-assessment,” which produced a 140-page report, and Human Services spokesman Roger Munns says it signals a change in emphasis from simply going into a situation, providing help, and seeing that the agency’s services are paid for.The emphasis now is to assess what a child needs, provide services, and then go back and evaluate whether the assistance helped. Iowa did not get perfect marks, but nobody did. Munns says a state can’t “pass” the evaluation if it’s not in the top 13 states in every one of six “Safety & Permanency” indicators, and not a single state has come close. Iowa DID excel in some of those indicators, though. One national standard says when a state removes a child from the family for safety reasons, it must return the child within a year in three-quarters of its cases, and Iowa beats that with more than 80-percent. When children are removed permanently, Iowa also gets top marks for finding adoptive homes promptly. A link to the complete self-assessment report is on the agency’s homepage at www.dhs.state.ia.us